Which Characters First? Galactic War and Mid-Tier Arena

Galactic War:

We have another article that goes into more of the {GW mechanics}.

While there are no characters to farm specifically to clear the GW, the only way to beat it successfully each day is to have a wide berth of characters to meet different types of teams and to have these characters geared and modded appropriately.

Mid-Tier Arena:

Arena teams should have synergy to get to the sub-500 tiers of Arena. Synergy is created by utilizing a character’s Leader ability at its highest level, and combining with 4 other toons who receive a bonus from that Leader ability.

Luminara, for example, has the Leader ability Elegant Steps which provides 15% Evasion to all Jedi on the team and also allows Jedi to recover 8% of Luminara’s Max Health at the start of each turn. This ability works for all Jedi on a team led by Luminara, but those without the Jedi tag can also gain under her Lead by receiving half of these bonus effects.

In another example, Wedge has the Leader ability Rebel Heroism that allows any Rebel on the same team to gain +30% Offense, to recover 15% of Max Health on a Critical Hit, to gain 10% Turn Meter on a Critical Hit, and also recover 25% of Max Health whenever the character defeats an enemy. This Leader ability applies to Wedge and anyone else within the Rebel faction, but will not apply to characters without the Rebel tag, such as Empire, Sith, and most Jedi.

A character’s Leader ability does not mean that only those from a similar faction should be included on a team, but a team will, generally, see better performance when played under leadership that provides everyone a bonus.

Another consideration in farming characters for Arena are character roles. Characters can be Attacker, Healer, Support, or Tank and it is generally a good idea to field an Arena team that includes at least one of each role. Always take note, however, of what the character’s listed role is within the game. Chirrut has the ability to heal characters and provide the Heal Over Time buff, but Chirrut is actually an Attacker. Fives is a Tank, but unlike the majority of Tanks, Fives does not have the ability to Taunt.

There is no one team or set of characters to farm for Arena, especially between Levels 51-80. A variety of characters can make up a variety of teams, and mods can make even a simple team bring home a win.

Sample teams* that can work well in sub-500 Arena:

Wedge-Lead, Biggs, Leia, Lando, STHan

Wedge-Lead, Biggs, Ezra, Old Ben, Leia

HK-47-Lead, IG-88, IG-86, Nebit, Jawa Engineer

Anakin-Lead, Ezra, QGJ, Barriss, Ahsoka

Hera-Lead, Ezra, Kanan, Zeb, Chopper

With Legendary Characters:

EP-Lead, Vader, TFP, RG, Sun Fac

Wedge-Lead, Biggs, Leia, Ezra, R2

Thrawn-Lead, EP, Vader, TFP, RG

(*) Team strength and performance is highly dependent on Mods. Please be sure to review Mods to ensure all characters are modded appropriately.

Farming Characters via Crystals:

By the 50-80 Levels, a player will notice that some characters are not readily available through any of the Stores. Other characters may be available, but only through a high-tier Cantina Node at 16 Cantina Energy per battle or a single high-tier Light/Dark Side Node at 20 Energy per battle. The majority of the characters found on the high-tier battles are generally stronger, with more complex ability kits, and were often first introduced to the game via Marquee Events or the old Tournaments.

A prime example is Darth Nihilus who has Dispel on his Basic attack, can reduce Cooldowns, and can one-shot any character, leaving them unable to be revived. Darth Nihilus was first introduced via the Marquee Lord of Hunger Event and then moved to the Shard Shop, before being placed on Dark Side Hard Node 9A. If a player did not unlock DN during his Marquee Event, it takes 50 of his shards to unlock him at 3*. At 5 attempts a day from a single node, and a drop rate of around 20-30% each day, it would take several weeks “farm” DN from just his node, and several months to gain enough shards to take him to 7*.

Aside from event-specific packs offered throughout the year, the only other ways to gain character shards are through Shipments and the Chromium cards.

Chromium cards can be risky as any character’s shards could be pulled from a Chromium, making it extremely hard to farm a specific character from Chromiums.

The Shipments, however, rotate throughout the day like the Stores, and players may directly purchase shards from a specific character using crystals. While all characters eventually appear in Shipments, some are better to farm using crystals than others simply due to the character’s ability kit versus the difficulty in farming them manually.

The below characters are all strong toons with usable kits, who are all very useful even at low stars, and all worth acquiring directly through crystals in addition to mining from specific Nodes/Stores.